Having done all the writing, animation and programming himself, Gemini Rue took Josh Nuernberger a total of three years to make-the same amount of time it takes some triple-A titles to hit the shelves. If only more triple-A games turned out this well.
I give this a 10, just because it perfectly executes what it wants to be. It is atmospheric, the story is thrilling and after all its just fun to play with the right amount of puzzles, dialogues and freedom. Despite its minimalistic graphics it manages to pull you into the world, even more so, it uses the graphics to their advantage.
Must have.
Despite some flaws Gemini Rue is an extraordinary game that will offer good times not only to point'n'click fans but also to those gamers who lost track of the genre around the Beneath the Steel Sky era. [June 2011, p. 71]
Further evidence that a smart independent developer can surpass any "professional" gamedev studio. Retro style successfully strums on a nostalgic chord. [Mar 2011]
This is a truely amazing game. I was expecting your standard point and click adventrure game, but this one has really set the bar high on impressive storytelling and unexpected twists.
This is a gem for anyone who loves adventure game and deep stories. In this you start play as a detective who looks for a man who can find him where his brother is, but he never turns up for your meeting and so you go looking for him. This friend also knows the location of your character's brother, who he's trying to find.
You also get to play as one of the prisoners in a rehabilitation centre omnimously named, Centre 7. You play as a man named Delta-Six who has his memory erased for the second time because he had attempted to escape. As him you attempt to break out yet again.
Again, I highly recommend it to everyone.
Solid Adventure.
Somewhat simplistic in puzzles and at times extremely annoying in their implementation. Here's an example:
:[SPOILER FOLLOWS - Example taken from actual game]:
You click on glass door. Door is closed. You punch it. No, says the game. Can't do it. You use a stick on the glass door. Excellent! Now there is a hole in the glass door, but the stick is stock in it (I know - what?). You use the stick and pull it out. Now you use the hole in the glass, reach through it and unlock the door. You click on the handle and FINALLY (oh, thank the Adventure Gods!) the door opens.
This could all be accomplished by figuring out that the stick should be used on the glass, and i thought we were passed that stage in Adventure Game Design where artificial time stretch was necessary to such a barbaric extent.
Nonetheless, even though Gemini Rue uses these heavy handed gimmicky mechanics throughout its entirety, they do not go very often to such extremities as described in the above example.
Story wise - nothing new, still pleasant. Good sci-fi, post revolution, semi-dystopic, pseudo-freudian, penopticon of a setting, which creates a good atmosphere throughout. Good mechanic of playing for two characters, which in this game works very well dues to a good cohesive glue of the main story.
Overall - Solid Adventure. Enjoyed. Recommend.
What to say about Gemini Rue… after Black Mirror saga I wanted to fall in another awesome story. When I read some very positive reviews on Gemini Rue it was clearly that this adventure will be great, so I bought it and started to play. After all I do not regret this decision. Old school graphics with sci-fi atmosphere like in the Blade Runner. Mysterious story which is absolutely intertwined and surprising. Yes, it is common point-and-click adventure but for me this is not a problem.
The 1980s are back ! And they forgot to bring a vengeance.
Simply put, someone forgot the meaning, the purpose and the beauty of a point n' click interface : You point, once, you click, once, and something happens. It took decades of cogitating and fumbling, by many designers, to evolve from the awkward text interfaces of old adventure games into the efficient simplicity of a Pn'C. The maker of Gemini Rue decided he could restart from scratch and do better ; the result is shockingly awful. His clunker only reminded me what a chore playing used to be sometimes, a chore we endured because there was nothing better yet, no option at the time. In 2011, leave it out, boy.
Too bad. There is obviously a good effort put in the storytelling here, but I'm too busy either mocking or insulting the interface to care.
I'm honestly not sure that other people are reviewing the same game I am. The one comment that seems fit is that the graphics in this game are akin to that in "Beneath a Steal Sky". In other words, horrible even for 10 years ago. Made by a single developer, this game comes across as the type of thing one would find in a developer's portfolio for a job interview, not a released game. The voice acting is stilted and not evocative in any way. To it's credit, the story is somewhat interesting and there is some humor in it. The best news is that there is a demo freely available from the distributor's website. I strongly advise anyone thinking of buying this game to download it and try it out. If you like what you see in the demo, it's probably worth the money. Myself, I could not get past the horrible graphics.
SummaryGemini Rue (formerly known as Boryokudan Rue) is an intense adventure set in a bleak future dominated by the corrupt Boryokudan crime syndicate. Players assume the roles of two very different characters: Azriel Odin, an ex-assassin searching for a defector from the Gemini system, and "Delta-Six," a hospital inmate whose memory ...